Assessment of Energy Self-sufficiency Ratio Based on Renewable Market Potentials for Unit of Local Government

This study estimated the available renewable market potential based on Levelized Cost Of Electricity and then assessed the renewable derived energy self-sufficiency for the unit of local government in South Korea. To calculate energy self-sufficiency, 1 km gridded market renewable generation and local government scale of final energy consumption data were used based on the market costs and statistics for the recent three years. The results showed that the estimated renewable market potentials were 689 TWh (Install capacity 829 GW, 128 Mtoe), which can cover 120% of power consumption. 55% of municipalities can fully replace the existing energy consumption with renewable energy generation and the surplus generation can compensate for the rest area through electricity trade. However, it was confirmed that, currently, 47% of the local governments do not fully consider all renewable energy sources such as wind, hydro and geothermal in establishing 100% renewable energy. The results of this study suggest that energy planning is decentralized, and this will greatly contribute to the establishment of power planning of local governments and close the information gap between the central government, the local governments, and the public.